Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk

An examination of Elon Musk during the most consequential period of his life, from the height of his power as the richest man on Earth to the potential beginnings of his downfall.

What happened to Elon Musk? In six years, he turned Tesla into the world’s most valuable automaker and cast himself as a savior of humanity, an altruist whose fortune would stop climate change and colonize Mars. How did this modern-day Edison devolve into a polarizing and perpetually distracted CEO and arguably the biggest bag-fumbler in human history? He didn’t suddenly lose his mind, or morph into a tool of foreign agents. Elon Musk torched his reputation and put his entire empire at risk simply by being himself.

Hubris Maximus provides a gripping, detailed portrait of the billionaire’s rapid ascent and his spectacular public implosion. Washington Post reporter Faiz Siddiqui methodically deconstructs the making of the self-anointed Technoking, arguing that the warning signs were always visible to anyone willing to look. Musk’s audacity and erratic behavior drove his success from the start; he spurned regulators and whistleblowers, and replaced those who dared question him with loyalists. Now he is in a unique position to sabotage it all, and there is no one left to save him from himself.

This remarkable case study in the pitfalls of unyielding loyalty to one man and the fecklessness of a gridlocked government is ultimately a cautionary tale: in a world that can’t turn away from its screens, competence is no match for the power of influence and sustained attention.